431 a
Block Crater is visible on the rim of Surveyor Crater in the right background.
“We finally reached the Surveyor Crater. I was surprised by its size and its hard surface,” recalled Pete Conrad. “We could have landed right there, I believe now, but it would have been a scary thing at the time. The Surveyor was covered with a coating of fine dust, and it looked tan or even brown in the lunar light, instead of the glistening white that it was when it left Earth more than two years earlier. It was decided later that the dust was kicked up by our descent onto the surface, even though we were 600 feet away” (NASA SP-350, p. 12.3).
133:55:56 Conrad: You know, I could have landed the LM in the bottom of that (Surveyor) crater. It would have scared me to death, but...(Chuckles) (Pause)
133:56:15 Bean: Let’s see. Okay, Pete. Would you carry the hand-tool carrier down there?
133:56:19 Conrad: Whoop.
133:56:20 Bean: You want me take some pictures up here around it?
133:56:22 Conrad: Okay. Now look. You can see which way it came in. See the way this gear pad dug in over there...
133:56:27 Bean: Yeah.
133:56:28 Conrad: ...dug up dirt? They’re still setting there.
133:56:30 Bean: Yeah. It’s going to make a good shot.
431 b
A small crater with a dark shadow is visible on the slope of Surveyor Crater in the foreground.
133:56:32 Bean: (breathing fairly heavily as he maneuvers to take pictures). Beautiful. Beautiful sight. You know, this one (meaning Surveyor III)’s brown and I don’t remember ours being brown there at the Cape.
133:56:52 Bean: (It’s) kind of a light tan or maybe that’s the way it’s changed color. What color was this one, Houston? White? When it started out?
133:57:01 Gibson: Stand by on that.
133:57:04 Bean: Yeah. It looks a light tan now.
431 c
“Some of the still imagery captured by the 12 Apollo astronauts between 1969 and 1972 while on the low-angled, Sun-lit surface of the Moon, can be likened to 19th and 20th century landscape photography. For example, the 19th century landscape photographer T. H. O’Sullivan’s famous otherworldly image of an ambulance covered wagon (containing his portable darkroom) and horses among the sand dunes of Nevada’s Carson Desert can be compared to Apollo 12 astronauts Conrad and Bean’s documentation of their Ocean of Storms landing site with the Surveyor 3 spacecraft in view. In his 1869 black-and-white image, O’Sullivan positions his camera to look back towards his footprints that lead to a team of horses attached to a covered wagon. The mise en scene gives a sense of scale of the wagon to the vastness of the pristine dunes and the washed out white sky. By comparison, Bean’s 1969 black-and-white photograph of the surface of the Moon includes his shadow looking toward the near distant and insect-like Surveyor 3 robotic spacecraft in its 1967 landing place.
The abstraction of Bean’s long shadow—postured in making this photograph—falls off against the desolate lunar landscape of the Surveyor crater and the stark blackness of space. Both photographs give life to an otherwise lifeless landscape” (Dick, p. 286).
133:57:04 Bean: Hey, this crater isn’t as steep as we thought, Pete.
133:57:15 Conrad: Uh-uh. And I’d better be careful. I’m going to get dust on her (the Surveyor).
133:57:21 Bean: Yeah. (Pause) I’ll stop here, and this will be my last picture.
431 d
The LM Intrepid is in the background, approximately 183 m away.
Apollo 12’s assignment was to land the LM near the location of Surveyor III, a picture-taking robot that had landed in the so-called Surveyor Crater thirty months earlier.
It was a golden opportunity for NASA engineers to examine spacecraft parts which had been exposed to lunar conditions for a relatively long period of time, information which would someday be of use in designing space stations and lunar bases.
134:04:46 Conrad: I’ll tell you what. Why don’t you mosey down there and start taking some photographs?
134:04:50 Bean: That’s a good idea. Got your cuff checklist there?
134:04:53 Conrad: Sure.
134:04:54 Bean: Okay.
134:04:56 Conrad: The first thing is photo bay A: (f/)11, 15 feet (focus), one picture.
134:05:03 Bean: 11, 15; let me get it set. 11, 15. Boy, that’s turned just kind of a light tan hasn’t it, Pete?
134:05:11 Conrad: It sure has.
134:05:12 Bean: And some of the things are even a dark brown.
134:05:14 Conrad: Yeah, you’re closer than 15. Don’t go any closer.
134:05:16 Bean: Yeah. Maybe I’d better back up a little.
134:05:17 Conrad: That a boy.
431 e
The TV camera is the vertical cylinder to the left with its glass mirror well visible at the top. A small color/contrast chart was placed on the end of a short boom to give experimenters on Earth a means of calibrating the TV images. The scoop is extended out to the right.
134:05:59 Bean: Hey, we got a nice brown Surveyor here, Houston. Even the tanks which were...Well, (if I) raise the visor and it’s not so brown, but it’s tan. The glass is still on the top. Not a bit of it is fractured.
134:06:12 Conrad: Yeah.
134:06:13 Bean: Amazing. Okay. (The formerly blue Surveyor) shovel is a gray. Take the Surveyor scene here. I don’t want to kick any of this dirt up because I’d like to get a picture of compacting of the dirt there.
134:06:24 Conrad: Yeah.
134:06:25 Bean: It’s going to be a tough shot.
134:06:27 Conrad: That’s “photo TV sector: f/8, 15, and three”. Now I have (reading) “photo scoop imprints: f/8, 5, two in stereo”.
134:06:37 Bean: Okay. Wait. I’m not finished yet.
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